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Forum:Open Government
Another issue that has wide popular support and is necessary for the practice of democracy is an open and accountable government. Operations of government should be as transparent as possible to the citizens. This safeguards the citizens from many abuses of power and the threat of tyranny. * There are several problems with making a blanket statement like this. While I agree that it's generally a good idea and should be implemented roughly 90% of the time, there are instances in which a government should absolutely not be transparent directly to the people, for instance troop movements. The fact of the matter is--corruption is a way of life for every government form. Democratic corruption happens to be pretty low compared to, say, Stalinism, but as long as people run a country there will be corruption. What we can do as a democracy is get the word out when it does occur and fix it at the next election cycle. Mandating transparency is just like any type of proactive regulation, be it proactive criminal legislation (carding bank customers as they walk in a bank because you know how bank customers are likely to rob a bank), proactive business legislation (Sarbanes-Oxley, inconveniencing normal businesses because deep down all businesses are Enron), or proactive Digital Rights Management, because you know how likely those petty consumers are to copy music. Any type of proactive measure serves to anger virtually everyone. _Reactive_ legislation (tough penalties), on the other hand, serves to anger only those violating it.Compaqdrew 12:37, 14 July 2006 (UTC) :*I think the difference between regulating government and the other proactive measures you mentioned (which I agree, do upset me) is that the government was created for the people's benefit. The government has no rights to privacy, or freedom of speech, or anything because it is not a human. Furthermore, the government has great power over individuals. The form of government makes no difference--any time a few people are given such authority over many more people, the ones in charge need to be kept in check. The best way to do this is to keep them honest, and the best way to do that is not let them have any secrets. We need to understand that we have surrendered certain, fundamental freedoms to this government in order to receive certain benefits. We have to be sure that the government is not taking more freedoms than we agreed to. Ferguson 00:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC) :*I'm going to have to counter that. One of the primary fallacies espoused by progressive thinkers is that of false dilemma or divisionism. Your line of reasoning appears to be somewhere along the lines of (to quote a popular liberal propaganda film) "The people should not be afraid of their government; the government should be afraid of its people." However, in any functioning democracy, the government is the people. And restricting anybody's ability to act (yes, even powerful governments) is misguided at best, and hypocritical at worst. If you really believe Locke's Contract Theory (on which the concept of Democracy is based), how can you deny a government which draws its power solely from the public in the form of a vote the ability to act in accordance with its granted authority, and from whose authority does said restriction come? Voters? If so, 'transparency' is already in place--people will use the voting process to withdraw from governments the ability to act if they so desire. The only reason to add an additional party to the elector/electee relationship is if for some reason you do not believe their power to self-govern is sovreign. Compaqdrew 21:10, 20 August 2006 (UTC) ::*"However, in any functioning democracy, the government is the people." Not to sound cliché, but if this is true, the United States is not a "functioning democracy". Voters do not control the government, political parties do. It's incredibly naive to believe that our current political system (no, I'm not just referring to the Bush regime, although it's an excellent example) bares any significant resemblance to Locke's theories, even sans-idealism. The United States still has two battling political parties, but that's just because our conservative party's big act of subterfuge wasn't as brilliant as the one portrayed in V for Vendetta (the "popular liberal propaganda film" mentioned above, for those who haven't seen it). :::Maybe I'm being too pessimistic? The government doesn't "draw its power solely from the public in the form of a vote", but maybe it does still represent the will of the governed, just with severely delayed reactions and plenty of opportunity for foul play in the meantime. It will be interesting to see the results of the upcoming elections, and the actions of Congress as it exists afterward. --whosawhatsis? 23:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC) Open Government